While the rest of America is looking towards our country’s 250th birthday, Sacred Heart School in Glendale celebrated an event fifty years in the making: An idea conceived by the Class of 1976, along with their teacher Mr. Charles Kulis, to bury a Bicentennial time capsule and unearth it at their 50th reunion!

This past April, alumni of all years gathered for the school’s 85th Anniversary Mass, which Father Richie Conlon, class of ‘76, returned to be part of. This was followed by a truly historical evening that will be remembered as being both reminiscent of an incredible childhood memory as well as a reunion of alumni from the 1960s to the 2000s. After Mass, the Class of ‘76 gathered on the school’s stage where the contents from the time capsule were displayed. Then Class of ‘76 rep Annette Morreale gave a heartfelt speech, and said, “We did it!” – meaning all the planning to bring together as many students from the Class of 1976 as possible to witness the time capsule opening had come to fruition. So, while she persuaded Mr. Kulis to come back and speak to her classmates that he’d taught fifty years ago, she also got Channel 2 news there and they featured the story on the Sunday morning’s news!

But the story of the time capsule begins in the Spring of ‘76 when 8th grade teacher, Mr. Kulis, said to his students that since it was the year of America’s Bicentennial, the graduating class should do something special. And that is how the idea of burying a time capsule was born. I was only in 5th grade in 1976, so luckily our principal, Sister Lorraine Liebold, suggested that each grade could also put something into this Bicentennial time capsule, and the 8th grade, aka class of ‘76, would serve as its stewards. The one thing I clearly remembered being excited about was that the music of our generation, whether it be vinyl, 8 tracks, 45s, or cassettes, would be buried for the students in the year 2026 to find.

On a sunny morning, May 24th, 1976, four eighth grade boys from the Class of ‘76 started digging a hole behind the fenced in area of the school, something that would never happen today since the fear of liabilities prohibits such ventures. Perhaps most captivating is that someone was brilliant enough to take (and preserve) a photograph at the exact moment when the time capsule, a patriotically decorated rubber garbage can, was lowered into the ground! That photo is worth a thousand memories and words especially for the Class of ‘76, and especially considering every human didn’t have a camera in their pocket back then. It was pointed out to me that you can see Mr. Kulis in the photo taking a picture from the other direction. Another alumnus remembered that the custodian poured some cement into a square wooden mold to make that beautiful headstone, but the person who wrote the inscription is still unknown. That warm spring day in 1976 was one of the most exciting schooldays ever for many students, and the whole student body was outside, many pressed up against the fence to watch!

But time marches on, and a few weeks later the Class of ‘76 graduated, and one by one, each year that had put something into that time capsule also graduated, and some of us even forgot all about it. As luck would have it, about a year ago I stumbled upon a Facebook post about the time capsule. It was of that photo, and Len Soldano, who is pictured in the photo on the left, with his arm outstretched, wrote in the caption, “Can’t wait to open our time capsule.” There were 191 comments attached to it, and as I read through them you could just hear the excitement and nostalgia from everyone who remembered that day. It was also clear that the Class of ‘76 wanted this to be a BIG event and that a date needed to be set for the Spring of 2026.

Through communicating with Annette, I became aware of all the bumps along the road in planning this huge, yet unique event. The first obstacle was the fact that May 24th, 2026, the day inscribed on the headstone for it to be dug up, was Sunday of Memorial Day weekend. So, to the disappointment of many, the date had to be set for Saturday April 25th, because May was just too busy between Mother’s Day and First Holy Communions. In the meantime, Annette shared her plan of closing the street and having a ceremony that would take place outside by the time capsule. She’d notified the press, and she even tracked down two of the boys who dug the hole for the time capsule to see if they might come back and be part of digging it up. I thought it sounded spectacular! But as the day drew near the forecast for Saturday was dismal. Then the day before the big day there was a rumor that the custodian had dug up the time capsule already! So, I ran over to the school and confirmed that it was already out of the ground. The assistant principal had the custodian start digging on Friday, and thankfully she did, because it took him hours to dig it up. It turns out those boys had dug that hole six feet deep! Furthermore, much of what was in the now disintegrated garbage can was pretty beat up, and some artifacts were beyond recognition. With the rain coming down all day on Saturday, it became clear, to the disappointment of all, that the entire affair would have to be held indoors.

As it turned out, nothing could put a damper on this wonderful night of school friends and memories, thanks to the hard work of the many people involved. That night I discovered that my grade, the Class of 1979, had written letters that were protected in plastic sleeves and put in a binder, the kind they used to sell with blue jean pants pockets on the cover! I took many photos and videos of this amazing night and really enjoyed finding out who was in that classic photo and how the headstone came to be. This occasion brought back a special time in the lives of many alumni, of both the Bicentennial and the burying of the time capsule.